'Liar' premiere: Joanne Froggatt on that surprise ending

Calling someone a liar is one thing. Calling him a liar to the entire world — that’s bound to have major repercussions.

The series premiere of SundanceTV’s new crime thriller Liar introduced us to Laura (Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt), a beautiful teacher who just broke up with her boyfriend, Tom (Luther‘s Warren Brown).

She goes on a date with Dr. Andrew Earlham (Ioan Gruffudd), a handsome and charming surgeon whose son attends Laura’s school. Their date is magical, and Laura invites him home to charge his phone and have a drink, but when Laura wakes up the next morning, she’s disoriented and shocked. She believes Andrew raped her and tells her sister, Katy (Zoe Tapper), and then the police.

Froggatt talked with us about the explosive ending of the first episode — when Laura decides to post about her rape on social media.

Why does Laura decide to go public? It seems like a bad idea. That’s one of the things that she does that I wondered, why would she do that? It’s such a stupid thing to do. Not stupid — it’s such a silly thing to do because it can ruin any case in court. Why would she do that? Her motives I can’t reveal, because it gives away the story, but basically, she wants revenge. She wants him to pay for what she feels he’s done to her.

She also remembers more about the night of the date, and thinks Andrew switched their wine glasses. Does this come into play down the road? Yeah, you see how that particular plot point turns out. And again, you find out whether that is the truth or whether or not she’s confused. It does have a conclusion.

The episode also revealed that Laura’s sister, Katy, and her ex, Tom, have been having an affair. Does everyone in the show have secrets? As the title suggests, lying is a theme of the show — and it’s not just our two central characters that are embroiled in this web of deceit. It’s basically every character in the show is or ends up being embroiled in their own lie or inadvertently in somebody else’s. It makes for a very twisty, turning, interesting plot. There’s so many different stories to unfold during the six episodes, and it really keeps you on your toes and completely invested. It’s a really clever story structure.